I have always liked garden worms, I even maintained several tropical red worm farms both personally and in a NYC primary school. Of course non-tropical earthworms are not quite the same, they are bigger and more pink than the red tropical worms.

In any case, I was attempting to reclaim a concrete path from the encroaching grass and weeds, when I came across what appeared to be a garden worm. It looked like a perfectly ordinary earthworm but a bit stiffer in the body because of the cold weather and had a darker redder stripe running down each side. I have seen that in the past; the worm’s body not being as flexible in the cold. I lifted the worm and placed it about 10 inches in from the place I was clearing. Generally when I place a worm away from where I am gardening it merely burrows into the soil and goes about its business.

The place where the angry aberrant worm reappeared.

A few minutes later the worm reappeared in front of me. It was angry. It had eyes and a mouth open. It lifted its head in front of me and seemed to be yelling at me, but of course, there was no sound. I never saw eyes and a mouth on an earthworm, but its body still looked like a normal 6 inch earthworm. What was it? Tiny snake? What kind? It had no legs so not a reptile of any sort (chameleon, skink, etc.). It was fairly cold out, not over 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Was it a cryptid? Was it a shamanic vision? It was as real to me as the dirt on my hands. I was so freaked out I fled the scene. The vision is burned in my mind.

My depiction of the worm could not accurately show the mouth, which looked angrier and displayed a toothless gum ridge. Otherwise it is fairly accurate.

Unusual heretofore unknown fact: The common earthworm can live to be six years old.

Fahrusha is the co-host of “Shattered Reality Podcast” and a professional intuitive.

There is a lot of discussion in the media about gender dysphoria. This blog post does not intend to make light of the subject, but this post is largely not about gender dysphoria. Tangentially it does play a small part. I was listening to an interview with a prominent paranormal thinker who noticed that oftentimes psychic readers, professional intuitives, and paranormal practitioners come from the population of marginalized individuals and communities. He particularly mentioned those in the LGBTQ community and the gender dysphoric. This may be true, but a large number of readers and psychics I am acquainted with are straight females, myself included. But this is not the actual topic of this post. And a hearty welcome to those intuitives from that community!

On a page on FaceBook, I made some disparaging remark about the destructiveness of the human race on the planet Earth. I was not faulting any particular person or group. A man with whom I am vaguely familiar, shot back at me something to the effect that he was tired of all the self-flagellating whiners like me. This surprised me deeply, not because he was critical of my stance, I rather expect that. It surprised me because it revealed something to me about myself, of which I was not so acutely aware. Something that I doubt he could have imagined. I did not think I was self-flagellating in the least because somewhere in my mind I do not identify with being human. I do identify with being in an animal body. I eat and like to have shelter and have sexual thoughts like humans and other mammals. I speak a human language but have as much kinship with cats and trees as humans. I also have what appears to be a human body and I often wear clothes. I wish all humans well and sincerely hope for a positive solution to human problems, but I don’t think that it looks at all promising. I have thought to blame my Neanderthal genes for seeing humans as destructive, but confidantes have laughed at that. It does make some sense to me that ancestral memories of Cro-Magnons invading and destroying the lifestyle of some of my predecessors could be a cause. This could jibe with seeing humans as “others”. By the way, one of those confidantes refers to himself as a Yeti (you know who you are). 🙂

Others have kindly suggested that perhaps this species dysphoria is because I am highly evolved spiritually. Personally I doubt it. Although I do think I subscribe to Robert Monroe’s primary statement, “You are more than your physical body.” And I do appreciate the approach of some North American indigenous people in envisioning other species as brothers and sisters and seeing the environment as sacred.

So many people who align themselves with spirituality or religion view things from a human-only point of view, seeking to reach an anthropomorphic Godhead of some sort, believing that a Supreme One somehow sets mankind on some evolutionary pinnacle as more important than other terrestrial beings. They also think that if angels or extraterrestrials or discarnate beings exist, that those beings wish to communicate specifically and only with humans. This hubris astounds me. Perhaps they’d rather communicate with rocks.

I think a whole lot more could be learned about paranormal phenomena if seen from a position that is non-species specific. We all operate some of the time on a subjective basis; the “it’s all about me” stance that some never have moved beyond, ever. So it is natural that as a group humans might view all intelligent paranormal phenomena as being about humans and directed towards humans. Now conversely, I do think that it is highly possible that some paranormal phenomena originates with individuals (human or animal or plant or non-respirating), but please note that a substantial portion of those humans in the modern era, who have displayed psychokinetic abilities, attribute them to extraterrestrials. Make of that what you wish.

Is this post somewhat tongue in cheek? I’m not sure and neither are you.

Fahrusha is an intuitive reader and co-host of “Shattered Reality Podcast.”

A few days before Memorial Day weekend 2017, I went to the NJ shore. There I visited with a woman friend of many years. We walked the boards and talked about our escapades of previous years, including singing “We German” to the tune of Bob Marley’s “Jammin'” in Upper East Side night spots along with another mutual friend. That, and the UFO model on the roof of a boardwalk business led us into a discussion of psychoactive substances such as ayahuasca. But what did our Northern European ancestors do to commune with the higher realms? Why should we have to travel to South America to partake of this magical substance to become enlightened? Our conversation turned to fly agaric also known as Amanita muscaria.

fly agaric illustration

This mushroom is associated with shamanism, Santa Claus, and reindeer. You can see it on many German and Swedish Christmas cards. It is prevalent in illustrations across Iceland and probably other Nordic countries as well, but I am speaking here from experience only. I actually purchased a delicate glass tree ornament of a fly agaric mushroom at a Christmas shoppe in northern Iceland. Now think about Santa Claus. According to tradition, he lives at the North Pole and flies in a sled pulled by reindeer and he wears a red suit. This description fits that of a Siberian or Lapland shaman. It is known that tribes from the Arctic region, particularly their shamans, ingest fly agaric to go on spiritual journeys. They also herd reindeer and the reindeer also eat the mushrooms which incidentally grow underneath fir trees (Christmas trees).

Santa as shaman. (courtesy of Ancient Time News on Tumblr)

So my friend and I agreed that probably the most culturally appropriate way for us to experience higher realms would be to dose ourselves with fly agaric. This was all said largely in jest and under the influence of a vodka and tonic. No way that either of us intended to go out and find and consume potentially poisonous mushrooms that neither of us had ever seen in the “flesh”. In fact we doubted that it grew in our area of the world.

Shortly thereafter I drove to Northern New Jersey where at a familiar location I found these mushrooms.

Northern NJ fly agaric mushroom

A NOT intrepid explorer and fly agaric mushrooms in a bed of sweet woodruff under fir trees.

I have spent much time at the location in various seasons but NEVER saw this type of mushroom there or anywhere else. I am interested in mushrooms and as a child broke out in a horrible rash from excessive handling of puffball mushrooms. I always stop to look at mushrooms when I see them in the wild. Needless to say I was blown away by this seeming synchronicity, I actually felt like the mushrooms were calling me to have a taste. But I didn’t. I had heard all the stories of professional wild mushroom pickers who died from making a wrong identification.

About a week later I visited Providence Rhode Island and came upon these sweeties on an evening walk.

Providence RI fly agaric?

This was beginning to get uncanny.

Then I received this toy figure as a gift.

Toy fly agaric figurine.

I don’t usually do a photographic essay for a blog post, but this little episode really calls for it. I still haven’t ingested any fly agaric, though I can’t say I’m not tempted. I think that the late Terence McKenna explained this best. He spoke of mushrooms being conscious and their spores traveling through outer space. Could these mushrooms have been speaking to me? I think that they were. I think they were speaking directly to the Neanderthal in me.